Thursday, February 4, 2010

Jennifer Aniston Opens Her Pearly Gates

NOTE: All you chickens who got here early were treated to a sneak peak of the dee-voon photos of Miz Aniston's new digs. All you late comers are, unfortunately, going to have to high-tail it down to your local news stand for a peek at the pictures in the actual publication. Sorry babies.

NOTE NO. 2: There seem to be a few snaps here...Quick and have a look-see before they vanish into thin air.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Celebrity real estate watchers around the globe have been sitting on pins and needles, jumpy with anticipation wanting some 411 on the the Beverly Hills, CA house that former Friends star turned romantic comedy queen Jennifer Aniston has been renovating for the last couple of years. Finally, now that she's finished the do-over and moved her skinny butt into the house, she's had it photographed for Architectural Digest so that she could "celebrate the people who made it: the master craftsman who poured so much of themselves into its creation." Those master craftsman would surely include her very well known, celeb-friendly dee-zinerStephen Shadley who has also worked on several homes for Diane Keaton and Woody Allen.

The first pictures to hit the interweb seem to be those on the blog Jezebel. The photos, children, are drool worthy as you can plainly see and we can all thank Carla Ridge for providing Your Mama with the the link over. We're sure the children are, like Your Mama, deeply distracted by those fat yellow arrows, but they were put there by the folks at Jezebel to illustrate all the places in the house were they think MizAniston will wallow in her 40 and single status and pine endlessly for ex-hubby Brad Pitt. Pleeze.

Anyhoo, MizAniston purchased the Bev Hills hideaway in October of 2006 for $13,500,000 from big-time contemporary art collector Rosette Delug. MizDelug, whose wealth is mainly derived from an enviable dee-vorce settlement in the early 2000s, had only purchased the house two years before, in September of 2004, for $7,200,000. MizAniston really must have wanted this damn house because she just about doubled MizDelug's dollars. The very interesting and sassy MizDelug is, for all the children who don't know, a late comer to the upper end contemporary art collecting circles in which she now orbits but she is well known in the art world for sucking up artwork like a Hoover and, according to a previous article about MizDelug, she has what she calls a "vagina wall" in her mid-century modern Trousdale Estates home where she's hung a number of works by various artists whose subject matter is the hoo-hoo. We l.o.v.e. her and would d.i.e. for her to be our art world fairy godmother. However, much as we might prefer, we're not here to discuss MizDelug and her wacky art world ways. We're here to have a look see at MizAniston's new real estate baby so let's get started.

MizAniston's new nest, located up a long, curving and paparazzi thwarting driveway, was originally designed by noted architect Hal Levitt in the early 1970s. Property records show that at the time MizAniston snatched it up, the single story sprawler measured 9,105 square feet and included 6 bedrooms, 7 poopers and 4 fireplaces. We're not sure how true to Mister Levitt's original designs Mister Shadley and MizAniston stayed, and we don't know how many bedrooms and poopers the house now contains, but we do know–because we have a copy of the magazine–that MizAniston did away with the "his" pooper in the master suite, turning it into a spa bath with a soo-blime soaking tub fashioned of wood. We're not convinced this doing away of the men's room is some kind of sign or symbol of MizAniston's romantic loneliness or that she's a man hater burned by a broken heart one too many times, but it seems that most of the other snarky gossip blogs and tabloids do.

Your Mama is not going to go on too much about the details of MizAniston's day-core–we'll leave that to the children–but we will say that we find the interior spaces to be sophisticated and warm but also muscular and even masculine but with a delicious softness around the edges. Some blogs and whatevers are saying this is her decorative homage to being a single lady, where she will whittle away her middle age with Botox and man blues. Could be. What do we know? But, we're pretty sure that the sort of man Miz Aniston dates–and we can all be assured she will date again because she is a dater–will feel quite comfortable in this house that doesn't, as far as we can see, whisper with much heartache or desperation. In fact, it sort of feels like with this monolithic overhaul that, au contraire, Miz Aniston may very well be finally owning her life as it is and not what it could have been had she sayed married and gone the mommy route. Of course, Your Mama thinks nine and some thousand square feet is too damn big for one person to ramble around in, but Your Mama is also well acquainted with the real estate size queen proclivities of super star actor types like Miz Aniston who seem to need big houses to contain their big personalities, bigger egos and punishing insecurities.

Moving along...Your Mama is positively swooning and sweating over the mirror image wood paneling of Brazilian curmaru in the living room or the library or whatever that room is where MizAniston has hung that marvelous orange and lavender Robert Motherwell painting called A Throw of the Dice No. 17. (Damn gurl, you got yerself a Robert Motherwell painting!) Unless Miss Thing actually plays that blond baby grand–which according to A.D. is a 1960s fruitwood Sauter–it's just pretentious decorative overkill as far as Your Mama is concerned. We're also more than a mite concerned that there are actual cigarette packs–custom wrapped in the same blue-y lavender as in Mister Motherwell's painting–sitting in the Jacques Adnet designed ashtray. We know that MizAniston likes to suck on them cancer sticks and it's her right to do so iffin that's what she wants to do. However, it pains Your Mama to think of all that gorgeous woodwork and those a-may-zing eggplant colored velvet chairs soaking up the stink of cigarettes. Let Your Mama tell all you smokers something straight up: All the Febreeze in the world does not take the stench and stank of nicotine away once it weaves its way in the fiber of the fabrics and attaches itself to the paint molecules. The only solution is to throw that shit out. We say this as a former pack a day smoker, children. We know first hand all about the lingering odor of smoking that gets all up in the fabrics and paint and it's awful. Just awful.

We're feeling the Asian influence in the bedroom with the wool and silk shag rug and the low low low platform bed custom designed by Mister Shadley. We're also appreciating the over-sized matching pair of table lamps. Ordinarily Your Mama prefers a room be balanced in a more asymetrical manner, but in this case we likey that the left looks exactly like the right.

We ache to see photos of the dining room where guests are summoned by Miz Aniston or her house gurl smacking a giant Thai gong. According to A.D. the dining room seats 24 under an Alison Berger chandelier, which we assume is custom. If y'all don't know Miss Berger's work, get on the interweb and get your fingers clicking and a'clacking. She's nine kinds of good at what she does. We'd also like to see more of the kitchen which is all decked out in travertine and equipped with a wood burning pizza oven–one of those new(ish) celebrity trends in cookery that we don't care about–and a glassed in wine room that has the Dr. Cooter peeing his pants with envy.

Now children, before y'all go crying and whining about how the house looks sterile or like a hotel suite at the 4-seasons in Bali, please keep in mind that before a photo was snapped each of these pictured rooms was cleared of the mess of daily life–magazines, scripts, remote controls, cell phones, keys and eyeglass cases for example–and worked over hard by a stylist whose job it is to make everything look perfect...not lived in, perfect. We used to get the lived in look in the fab but defunct Nest magazine, but this is Architectural Digest people. Houses in A.D. aren't supposed to look lived in. They're supposed to look like an undisturbed decortive perfection preserved and pickled in a giant vitrine of photographic formaldehyde. We're quite sure that when the A.D. people packed up when home, the clutter of MizAniston's life returned.

MizAniston gave her new estate the name Ohana, which means (extended) family in Hawaiian. Your Mama happens to think that's a depressingly cheese ball name, but we're cynical that way. Even still and although we don't care for the sorts of romantic comedies 0f MizAniston's professional milieu, we do wish her a bit of peace and quiet in her new home.

MizAniston–who donated half a million clams to Haiti relief–continues to own a house high in the Bird Streets area of Los Angeles–that's above Sunset Plaza people–that she bought way back in January of 1993 for just $715,000. It's our understanding from someone with an intimate knowledge of the area immediately surrounding that house that she uses the house to store her vintage Mercedes 280SL–that she claims she's never drove or even rode in–and office space for her personal staff.

54 comments:

40 years old, super wealthy, has a Robert Motherwell and was privy to the sensory delights of a pre-goat boy brad pitt, yet can't seem to say a sentence without the "it was like, oh my god".Like, oh my god!

Ooh, someone at A.D. Is going to be in so much trouble when they find out the photography unit drove to Marsha Brady's house instead of Jenn-Jenn's. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself and choosing to believe.

I'm sort of surprised at the negativity. I think this house is spectacular. Not every detail is what I might do if I had her money, but it's exquisitely done.

Boring? really? dreary? really? I don't understand why people can't see that this is really good stuff even if they don't care for the style. This is very, very well done. A spare no expense sort of thing.

I love what I can see in these pictures of Jennifer's home! The views are amazing. The decorating does appear gender neutral or slightly masculine as evidenced by the earth color/dark color scheme, simple clean lines, comfortable appearing furniture and minimal accessories. The spaces appear like one could live in them not just look at them. Nice job!

Having grown up in upper-middle-class suburbia during "The Ice Storm" years, this place looks like one of the houses our parents had. They usually had a Mercedes 190SL stored in the garage and went to things called "Marriage Encounters" when they weren't fucking each other. But this house is authentic in a way that those houses never were. The view, for one thing. The Motherwell, for another. Wonderful description, Mama. Thanks for putting this up.

marriage encounter! i had not thought about that in years! yes, when we were kids we'd see that decal on a car and conjure up nasty images of our parents swapping and swinging, although that's probably not what it was about. Thanks, Helena!

"It's our understanding from someone with an intimate knowledge of the area immediately surrounding that house that she uses the house to store her vintage Mercedes 280SL–that she claims she's never drove or even rode in–and office space for her personal staff."

And her libido is also stored there. It also has not been driven in many years!

Et tu, Mama?I cant bear the thought of you wallowing around in ignorance of the fact that anustain DID NOT DONATE 500,000 TO HAITI. Her pittbull PR queen huvane let that BIG FAT LIE hang out there when in fact, the truth is that she is NOW going to have a FUNDRAISER AT HER HOUSE and the donations will go toward that 500,000 she uttered as a knee jerk response to the fact that she was being called out for being a scrouge when every other celeb of note followed in the wake of Brad and Angie's One Million donation THE DAY AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE STRUCK HAITI.

So there is anustain, face red with embarrassment, uttering that 500,000 when what she really plans to do is ask her friends to donate to HER so she can pony up their 500,000 IN HER NAME as if she donated her own money.

^^I'm so with you "big fat meh." I'd write my own reaction but am too tired to get into it and, boy, do I have a lot I want to say about this uninspired, soulless woman cave (hee-hee). All that money, time...A multimillion dollar blank canvas and this is ALL she can come up with? Thanks to her endless interviews I always took her for being unforgivably boring and she continues to prove this in many ways.

Oh and extra demerits for showing the bed. (Only special people get to see the bedroom.) Now she's provided yet more imagery for the prisoners to use...if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Spot on with the smoking comments - and don't forget "butt breath" - with some people, it actually does smell like ass. I went from 2 packs to 1 pack to no packs per day, so I know from whence I speak.

It's tootoo nineteenseventytooooo for me, but I don't have to live in it. Only those who didn't actually suffer all things seventies at the time have any attraction toward them today. Not one damn thing looked good during that decade, not hair, clothes, cars, appliances, politicians, the future, nuthin'.

Anyway. This is a marvy blog with delightful writing, happy to have stumbled across it.

The bed, that's a total knucklescraper. Someone must be listed on payroll as Bedmaker, with extra healthcare bennies for the wrecked knees and bleeding hands from making that thing every day. Unless there's a magic electric gizmo that pops up from inside that box to yank the linens down all straight and well-behaved. Anything's possible. It does look sharp. A little too sharp. Edged.

OMG, after all the hype we've heard about this house (not to mention the one she owned with Pitt) I was hoping for something outstanding--but all I can say is YUCK!! Again, SO much money and so little taste. I would bet my last dollar if this house was owned by anyone who is not famous, AD would NEVER published it--butt ugly!

re: the smoking, I've always smoked, but I'm not sad to see the days of interior puffage fading away. I smoke outdoors by choice now no matter where I am, as do all of my smoky friends. It's a good thing to do, plus cuts down on consumption dramatically, also good. I do badly miss being able to sit at a public bar and smoke with my drink but what the hell.

Back in the day nobody noticed how godawful stinky it was because just about everyone smoked everywhere, at work too. And the nicotine buildup on walls, ceilings, surfaces and objects, omfg. It's like an amber shellac after a while.

Unfortunate that the Motherwell is apparently being subjected to ciggie smoke. Oil and acrylic paintings survive all that, but still.

Pretty sure the Motherwell-matching, lavendar-labelled cigarette packs everyone's huffin' and puffin' about are the classic Gauloises. Favorite of beret- wearing beatniks everywhere, your worries are well founded -- they steengk worse than anything we got over here in the good ol' U.S. of A. Quel horreuer des aromatique!

The home, zut alors, is best seen in situ to fully appreciate its impact and considerable scale, what EVAH you think of the lady of the house. Merci, bonne Mama!

Is it just me, or does it remind one of Brad's house? I read she hated his house so much she wouldn't live there (and I believe everything I read on the internets), and then she spends half her time since the break up styling a house like the one she supposedly disliked?

Pool table for whom? And a yellow piano to be played by Jen herself? Didn't know she could. Yes, the day-core is too dark and heavy, but its some decorator's taste, I presume, not really hers. Actually, she was good in The Good Girl. Haven't seen much of her stuff since.

I wonder how many Haitian children could live in there? Forget Donation Posing, adopt some kids, invite Brad over for some Dad time and share that square footage! I bet the kids would love that pool!!! Bachelorette pad maschelorette pad...

Good grief, who cares the painting must cost $$. It is not my taste; in fact, the house/home is a big 0.I think it is decorated for everyone's/anyone's approval - I see nothing personal to it. The darkness is gloomy.

ed has a point, and I don't dislike the place because it's Aniston's - if it belonged to a neighbor or friend of mine I still wouldn't care for it. To me walking into the '70s is such a depressing endeavor that I always wish there was a handy cliff outside the back door I could toss myself off of.

First of all, the project most definitely would've been in AD regardless of the owner. This house is so fantastic for so many reasons. I would only expect such stupid comments from most people...typical suburban word garbage.

Like most ex smokers I detest the habit, but back in the days I was young, stupid, smoking and at an Ivy league school. There was a beloved, talented, wealthy and smoking professor who had renovated a large historic house to display her fantastic art collection, and you never ever noticed the effect of cigarette smoke in her house despite that she puffed all day long, along with the students who hung out at her house and during parties.

Why?

It's called ventilation. I'm sure it's not 100% effective, but her ventilation system sucked the smoke straight up before it had any chance to linger on anything. I have seen similar setups in European restaurants and bars where people around me will be smoking but I never smell the smoke.

I'm confident Jennifer Aniston has a similar ventilation system in her house, so don't worry too much about the effect of her nasty habit on the upholstery and wood.

Ephemera Man, by assemblage artist Tim Robson and Green Interface, the mixed-media painting by ModArtist Craig Baskin, were selected as two of a handful of notable pieces on display in the Palm Springs Juried Art Exhibit, as part of Modern Architecture week in that city.

Wow, I think that perhaps some of the people leaving comments were looking at themselves in the mirror - I LOVE this home. The idea of a whole room designed for a soaking tub - heaven on earth. Calm, quiet, connected to oneself, that is what I see in the photosWell done and beautiful.